We all know it’s hard leaving family and friends behind when you move, especially to another country, so keeping in touch remains vitally important.  In fact, did you know that our consumer customers spend, on average, one million minutes on fixed line international calls every day?

With so many customers making international calls each day I am really pleased to be the bearer of some great news.  We have launched a new offer, called the International Calling Pack (ICP) and making some changes to our existing offer, called the International Value Pack (IVP), making international calling cheaper and easier for our customers.

Let me tell you about the ICP first. Our research started with our customers– where are they calling, how do they want to make their calls, and how much would they be happy to pay?  Based on the answers to these questions, we’ve created an offer that we think ticks all the boxes.

For a $15 monthly subscription, you’ll get unlimited calling to fixed lines to the following countries:

Argentina, Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, USA, UK, Vietnam.

Now I know you’re thinking, why are some of these countries in red?  Well, not only do you get unlimited calling to fixed line phones for your $15 monthly subscription, you’ll also receive unlimited included calls to mobile phones in these 14 countries in red as well!

Calls landing on an international mobile in the remaining 18 countries will incur a call connection fee and specially reduced per minute charges.

• All the details of the countries and rates for ICP appear here

Now for the International Value Pack. The IVP has been loved by our customers for over five years. It offers great per minute rates to a wider range of countries – 72 in total – and now we have further reduced those rates. We’ve reduced the rates to over 40% of the countries for calls that land on a home phone and to almost 80% of the countries for calls that land on a mobile phone. And the reductions are sizeable, some being over 60%.

• Full details of the new IVP rates can be found by clicking here

Just as important as the great rates, we’ve made both these offers as accessible to as many of our customers as possible. Customers on any full service Telstra HomeLine plans can now access these great rates, being able to take up either the ICP or IVP offers (just not both together).

We think these exciting new options will make great appeal to our customers who call overseas – really keen to hear what you think.